Because ice cream cones are such fragile articles, they are preferably packed and shipped in such a manner as to protect each and every cone. Yet in an effort to conserve packing space and reduce shipping costs, ice cream cones are conventionally packed in nested stacks and shipped in a container full of many such nested stacks of cones. While this arrangement has achieved the desired conservation of space, it has also resulted in substantial product loss due to breakage. Thus, in the ice cream cone packaging art, there exists a tension between protecting each individual cone and efficiently utilizing packing space.
Various containers are known in the prior art for packing ice cream cones, each of which purports to solve the breakage problem in the context of efficient space utilization. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,146,112 to Weinstein discloses an ice cream cone package wherein a plurality of nested and stacked cones are placed in elongated horizontal and vertical channels defined within a container. The channels are formed by folded sheets of corrugated paperboard. The claimed advantage of the arrangement is to resist forces which ordinarily tend to wedge the nested cones together and thereby prevent any damage that could result therefrom.
As a further example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,745,025 to Hollinger discloses a combined shipping, display and dispensing package for ice cream cones. This package includes a protective cone tip pad, a cone tip holder tray and a matrix of pockets, each of which is formed of corrugated paperboard. The effect of this arrangement, and in particular of the cone tip holder tray, is to prevent any contact of the cone tips in a particular stack from contacting the exterior wall of the container. Removal of the cone tip pad and the cone tip holder tray permits dispensing of the cones directly from the matrix of pockets provided within the container.
As a yet further example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,349,571 to Davis et al. discloses a bulk container for transporting and dispensing ice cream cones. This container provides a plurality of folded foam sandwich structures, each of which defines a row of cells. Each cell, in turn, is formed to receive a single ice cream cone. A plurality of folded foam sandwich structures, each with a layer of one ice cream cone stacks, are inserted into an outer container to form a matrix of cells therein. The effect of this arrangement is to create a force fit between the cones and the sandwich structures such that the cells close down on and immobilize the individual cone stack.
Several problems exist with these and the many other prior art containers that purport to relieve the above-described tension in the ice cream cone packaging art. First, no prior art container has proved effective in reducing the amount of cone breakage while conserving packing space by utilizing a nested stack arrangement. Stated differently, no container in the prior art has actually proven cost efficient in terms of both cone breakage reduction and space conservation.
A second problem with such prior art containers is their reliance on paperboard or corrugated paperboard to form and maintain the structure of the container. For example, the effect of any jostling of the Weinstein package described above (U.S. Pat. No. 3,146,112) is to force the outermost portions of the cone against the corrugated edges of the board. Such an action simply erodes such outer portions of the cone or even ruptures the cone structure.
Yet another problem is that even though ice cream cones are perishable, they are often stored temporarily in unrefrigerated warehouses, storerooms and the like that typically provide a hot and humid environment. Because all paper absorbs moisture, prior art containers that rely on paperboard or corrugated paperboard absorb such atmospheric moisture and lose their rigidity. As a result, they may deform or even collapse, thereby causing damage to the cones stored therein. Should the containers be stacked one upon the other, the collapse of one container may cause damage to another container (and the ice cream cones stored therein) if the stack falls.
As opposed to relying on the paperboard to form and maintain the container's structure, the Davis package described above (U.S. Pat. No. 4,349,571) relies on the cone structure itself to maintain a cellular matrix. Such an arrangement is, therefore, only as sturdy and rigid as the cones themselves. Any impacting force sufficient to damage a cone will cause damage to both the package and the cones stored therein. Of course, because of the forced fit arrangement of the package, damage to any one cone will weaken the structure and may result in a collapse of the cone matrix structure. The greatest disadvantage of an arrangement such as that shown by the patent to Davis is the single cone stacks. Such an arrangement fails to provide the desired space conservation.
Yet another problem with such prior art ice cream cone containers is that they fail to effectively isolate the stacks of nested cones one from the other within the container. An arrangement as provided by Hollinger (U.S. Pat. No. 3,745,025) places the cone stacks in such close proximity without sufficient intervening structures that an impacting force causing damage to one stack would cause damage to an adjoining stack.
Thus, the prior art has failed to provide an efficient ice cream cone package in terms of both space conservation and breakage loss. Furthermore, the prior art has heretofore failed to provide a container that sufficiently absorbs an impacting force so as to protect the cones contained therein, but also isolates a stack of nested cones such that any damage is confined to a minimum number of cones in a single stack.